The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence said on Friday it has sharply cut back an online ad that had used the names and faces of mass shooters and urged the news media not to identify them after the group drew criticism from other gun control activists...

...The prominent use of the names and images of Adam Lanza, who shot dead 20 children and six educators at a Newtown elementary school, and James Holmes, who fatally shot 12 people at an Aurora movie theater, in the two-minute online spot angered fellow anti-gun-violence campaigners.

The Brady Campaign's ad prompted a petition (chn.ge/1SCfovp) on activist website Change.org calling for the ad to be taken down. Some 93 people had signed that petition as of midday Friday.

"It was very hurtful to many gun violence victims and survivors," said Anita Busch, a Los Angeles-based entertainment journalist whose cousin was slain in the Aurora massacre and who said she posted the petition. "For the Brady Campaign to not get it is just shocking, honestly."